


the justice of cities

by lenainu



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: First Order, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-26 21:09:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7590475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lenainu/pseuds/lenainu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Rey didn't grow up alone? </p>
<p>A First Order-Rey fic. Examining how culture affects who you are, and how it doesn't, and how an efficient First Order - a one that succeeded the Empire - would be like.</p>
<p>Or: everyone thinks they're the good guys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. individually we fall, together we rise

**Author's Note:**

> This is only the first draft I'll working on at the moment, so be advised at that at some point in the future, I will edit everything.  
> I'm really excited about seeing how this goes, so hope you like it. Remember, comments are my life-blood.

Jacks passed her the tablet. "Take a look at that," he said. Sun took it, and opened the file. Jakku. The planet was called Jakku.

"What's my mission?" Sun asked.

"Undercover, of course." Of course. Sun was very good at being unnoticed. "You won't have a handler, or a partner." Jacks went on.

_What?_

He noticed her discomfort. "I know, I know," he said. "It's unorthodox. But the thing is, you're not actually expected to do anything. You're just a last resort. It's just a rumour. We can't afford to remove one of our other undercover troopers from their missions. You're quite rare, you, know, your kind."

Sun looked away, not sure what to do with this - praise? Besides, she wasn't rare. She was a trooper. She didn't want to be rare.

"Any particular things to listen for?" she asked instead, flicking through the statistics of Jakku. Small economy based on scavenging, hardly any water supplies, large indentured population, dangerous indigenous predators.

"There's a man rumoured to hold something we want," Jacks said.

That was non-specific. Sun did understand that the information she was provided was only as much as she could handle, but she didn't know what to do with that.

"So I'll be watching him?" she asked.

She didn't ask what the thing was. She was curious, but she wasn't stupid. Some things were better not to know.

Jacks reached over and tapped open another file on the tablet, bringing up a holo. "There he is," he said. "He goes by a couple of different names, so that doesn't matter. Just remember what he looks like."

Deep brown robes, the whitest hair, pale skin, human.

"Am I to interact with him?" Sun asked.

"SN-1189."

"I apologize." Sun said quickly.

Jacks waved a hand. "It's fine with me," he said. "But you've got to be more careful with when you speak. If you question an officer like that."

Sun nodded. She felt slightly wretched. Why couldn't she ever stop asking questions of her superiors? It wasn't that she didn't trust them: she trusted them with her troop, entirely. She trusted them with her life, though that wasn't as important as her comrades.

"You will not be interacting with the target," Jacks said. "He is extremely suspicious due to the thing he possesses, and it would be terrible to the First Order if the existence of undercover troopers was revealed. It could lead to the deaths of your comrades across the galaxy, and the terminations of their missions. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Good." Jacks said. "The rest of your brief is on there. Your shuttle leaves in thirty minutes, but the two-hour flight should be long enough to get up to date with everything."

That was - fast. Sun would ask - don't I get more time to study the terrain - but she had asked enough questions already. She didn't want to lose her mission. She enjoyed being undercover, even though it would be weird without a partner this time.

It was her duty, and her honour.  
 

* * *  
 

On the flight there, Sun decided open the holo of Jakku.

Then she closed it.

She didn't know why she closed it.

She really wished she had a partner, but she was all alone. That was probably it. She was worried about not having a comrade with her.

It wasn't that for some reason, the hollowed wreck of a spaceship half-swallowed by the sand looked familiar to her. Made her feel - sad? No, that wasn't the right word. She couldn't think of the right word.

She buried herself in the statistics of the human terrain, and didn't open the holo again.

An hour later, they landed. Sun removed her suit, and dressed herself in some strange, soft tan clothes that had been provided. She checked her appearance against the holo of the inhabitants and looked right, although she still felt that strange nakedness that she experienced whenever she removed her suit. It never felt like that when she was in barracks and they didn't need their suits. It was probably because every time she was went undercover, she was leaving her suit behind.

Every time after going undercover, the end of a mission - and putting on her suit again - felt better than anything. She knew she shouldn't think like that, but she figured as long as she didn't tell anyone, didn't influence any of her comrades, then it was okay. It was only a minor contamination, this attachment to her suit, and contaminating others was always the worse crime.

Sun breathed in and out, settling the young human on hard times, wandering the galaxy in search of work, that she was going to become. Hitch-hiking the galaxy, getting dropped on Jakku by her latest ride. Looking for another ship, once she had earned enough money to pay for it.

She walked off the ship into the port.

Ports were usually bustling places, full of people coming and leaving and selling and buying. The port on Jakku wasn't like that. Only a couple of other ships sat in the immense expense of concrete. Land on Jakku was cheap. Nothing else was.

Again, something pulled inside of her. She had seen this before. Not those other ships, perhaps, but the pale blue sky, and the dry, salty air and the hollow, ever-changing song of the wind.

She had never been to Jakku before. She had never even been to a desert planet before, so she wasn't overlapping or confusing memories. Most of the places she went, undercover or not, were more important places, and more important places actually had natural resources. Forests or seas or wide, aching grasslands. Not just this - a planet that survived off centuries of misfortune. Crash landings, empty fuel tanks. It didn't even have that much of a slave trade, as the cost of keeping the slave - you could starve one, but you had to give them water to survive - outweighed the cost of water.

Sun tried to push the feeling aside, to concentrate on her mission. Maybe she had seen Jakku in a holo in education or something, and didn't remember it. It could be something simple like that.

Her first night, in a tent that apparently was the only form of rental in the town that wasn't quite a town, she found that it wasn't.

She knew the planet because she had dreamed it.

It wasn't a pleasant dream. It was a dream she had dreamed many times before, but never really bothered to remember. Dreams didn't mean anything after all. They were just random fragments of your brain rewriting itself, she knew that. They had taught them that in education.

In the dream, she was crying and someone was dragging her by the arm. She was suit-less. She was small. She was on Jakku, or a planet that looked remarkably like Jakku.

In the dream, her small, suit-less form was crying: _I want to go home._

It didn't make any sense, except it did.

It did make sense, so she didn't think about it.

She pulled open the flap of her tent and walked outside, over to the old man who sold fried leve. It was cheap. Apparently a cargo ship a had crashed here a couple of years ago, and all it had on it was dehydrated leve. Too much for anyone, so the price of it was basically the price of the water used to re-hydrate it.

"Sun's up," the old man said when he saw her approaching. She rolled her eyes. She was using her nickname on this mission, because it wasn't strange enough to arouse suspicion, and she responded to it easily. The leve man had decided to turn it into a joke. It would annoy her, except she didn't really care for her name. If someone said her designation wrong, perhaps that would be annoying. But her nickname - well, it was nothing.

She bought the fried leve and sat down next to him. "Any ships in today?" she asked.

The old man laughed. "The day that happens, I will hop over to your tent and tell you the second it happens."

Sun frowned at him. "You wouldn't know the second it happens. You can't see the port from here."

"I would know," he said, tapping the side of his head, as if indicating that there was something magical inside it. Sun very much doubted that.

"I'm off to work then," she said.

"Good luck!" he called after her.

In the dream, she didn't have her designation number on her fore-arm. It wasn't even covered by a silicone patch, like it was at the moment. It just wasn't there.

Last night's dream had changed from the usual one. She had escaped the human dragging her along, and was running, running, running into the sands and she was so thirsty but not thirsty enough to turn back.

_Who are you?  
SN-1189._

_What are you?  
A Stormtrooper._

_What do you care for, over everything else?  
The First Order._

_Who are you?  
Once: A human child, running._

Work was fixing electronics. She had been trained in it, because it was a good skill to have, undercover. Everyone needed a mechanic, whatever planet it was. She got a measly wage for it, but it was in the market-place (which wasn't really a market place, just the scavenging depot and a bar, since alcohol was cheaper than water) so she got to watch everyone come and go.

She was just waiting for another ship. She was wanted to be near the port. She was probably going to try to stow away since she hardly earned enough money to pay for passage.

That was the story.

In the dream, her suit-less self said: _they'll come back for me, they'll come back for me._ Over and over again.

Something is telling her not to leave Jakku. It's entirely alien. When the mission ends, she'll leave Jakku. She'll be glad to leave Jakku, to be among her comrades again. Why would anyone want to stay on Jakku, anyway? It was a nothing place, a thin line between life and slipping into death.

Once before, Sun had wanted to stay on an undercover mission forever. She had forgotten what was important. She would never do that again. But that was different. She had been younger then, and knew less, and tried to make the human terrain into comrades.

She had been stupid, but her commanding officer understood. They hadn't re-conditioned her, because it was better to remember her mistake and never let it happen again than forget it and repeat it, over and over until she would have to be decommissioned.

But she wasn't stupid any more, and she didn't care for the people here either. So why did she want to stay?

_I want to go home._

There was a sound. A sound of a ship entering the stratosphere. She looked up from her work to watch it. It served her story, after all, and besides, she was curious. The thing about Jakku was this: no one came here unless they couldn't avoid it.

Something hit the sand next to her. "Get on with your work, girl!"

Sun did that, and also watched the plane ship out of the corner of her eye.

A - human, she guessed - walked out of it after it landed. Brown jacket, brown hair, male. An orange BB unit a rolled after him.

She watched them. It wasn't that unusual. Everyone watched newcomers. They had only stopped looking at her in suspicion a couple of weeks ago.

He walked up to the bar with an easy confidence, started chatting to the others, seemingly oblivious to their hostile expressions. Until of course, he bought a drink for all of them and they all decided to tolerate them. Sun wished she was closed, closer, so she could hear what he was saying.

But then the wind bought her the right words anyway. Lor San Tekka.

That was one of the names of her target. It hadn't taken her long to pick that up after she had arrived her. Everyone on Jakku knew the Hutt, and everyone on Jakku know knew Lor San Tekka. He was - respected, in a way. As respected as the citizens of an abandoned planet can manage, anyway.

This was only an observation mission, which was a pity. But here was another target to watch.

She wouldn't interact. She would just watch.

Then the human came over and stood in front of her and said: "I hear you're the best mechanic here."

_Oh._

"What do you need fixing?"

The story was more important than the not-interacting rule of the mission. Because like Jacks had said, discovery was the worst thing for her comrades, for the First Order. She had to appear normal. She had to live her story.

He waved a hand at the ship. "Problem with the navigation system. Almost crashed in the desert because of it."

Lucky he didn't.

She glanced over to the Hutt. She still had her day's work to do, as part of the story.

"I have to finish this," she said. "But I'll be done by the evening. Will you still be here?"

"Leaving tomorrow," the human said, and held out a hand. "Poe Dameron."

She was really glad for all those lessons on human terrain now. She shook it. "Sun."

"Good to meet you, Sun," Dameron said. "I'll meet you over by the port at - say, 6pm?"

Sun nodded.

 


	2. memories aren't truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And this is the turning point.

"It shouldn't take long to fix," Sun said.

"Great. I need to go as soon as possible."

Sun had finished her work before six, and tried to think of a way to justify listening in on whatever business Dameron had with Lor San Tekka, but she couldn't think of anything that would stand up. So she went back to her tent, and made her tea, and thought about how the old man fully expected her to hitch a ride on the ship.

If she didn't, it would make her story questionable. She would have to play it through, and hope that Dameron would say no: who wouldn't? She didn't have enough money here to pay for passage and she didn't know how to fly a ship.

She ignored the possibility that he would agree.

"Where're you going on to?"

Dameron actually looked sharply at her for that, for a second. It was strange: every expression before that had been affable, always touched by a smile. Her heart beat a little faster. _He didn't know, he didn't know._ "I'm looking for my family," she quickly said. _Where had that come from?_ "I don't want to stay on Jakku forever."

And Dameron smiled again. "I can see why. How'd you even end up here anyway?"

Sun shrugged, slightly distracted by reconfiguring the navigation system. She had to stop herself doing it in the First Order style, which was superior - the only way the X-wings were navigable as at all - but also recognizable to others.

"My uncle left me here a while ago," she said. "Been trying to leave ever since."

And that hadn't been part of the story. She wasn't supposed to have an uncle. She wasn't even exactly sure what an uncle actually was. She wasn't supposed to have a story that people could easily unravel. Anyone else here could tell Dameron that she had arrived here alone.

Yet it felt true, and she said it like it was true.

She decided to examine why that was some far, far point in the future.

"The Ileenium System," Dameron said. "I can drop you off anywhere on the way,"

Oh. She hadn't expected it to be that easy. She didn't know what to say - turn it down and unravel the pathetically weak story, or agree and disappear at the last minute.

She really wished she could get in contact with one of her superiors. But this mission wasn't important enough for a handler so it definitely wasn't important enough to risk explaining why a washed-up mechanic had working First Order tech.

"Do you know where to look for your family?" Dameron asked.

Sun shook her head. "I can't remember. It was a long time ago."

_Who are you?_

_She said her name._

_That's incorrect. Who are you?_

_She said her name._

_That's still incorrect. Who are you?_

_She said: SN-11809._

Dameron nodded. "You'll still have a better chance in a city, though, instead of here."

Sun closed the navigation panel.

"How far are you going?" she asked.

"D'Qar." He had paused before saying that. That was important, though the planet wasn't familiar to her. But he had wanted to talk to Lor San Tekka, and she was observing Lor San Tekka. Which meant he was a liability to the First Order in some way, and perhaps Dameron was too.

"You're leaving tomorrow," Sun said. Dameron relaxed slightly. This was why they wore suit - apart from the protection, obviously - it was far too easy to read body language. So the planet was important in some way, and Sun's lack of recognition reassured him. "How much do you want?"

She didn't have a lot of money, but then she wasn't actually sure what a lot was. Everything in the First Order was shared, apart from their suits, so it wasn't like she understood money or anything.

"Just make sure the ship doesn't break down," he said. "Glad to help."

_Why?_

_Because you don't know who I am?_

She was used to her comrades helping each other without looking for any reward - she wasn't used to it in the rest of the universe. The rest of the universe demanded payment for everything.

"Okay," Sun said, feeling slightly like she was standing at the end of a cliff. staring down into the abyss. "I'll see you tomorrow then."

* * *

Tomorrow brought the ships of the First Order.

"When it rains, it pours," The old man grumbled in the morning.

"Those are First Order ships," Sun said.

"I know," the old man retorted. "I saw the Stormtroopers pouring out of them. It's bad for business, that's what it is."

Sun doubted that. She was his only regular customer.

"I'm leaving today," she said. It was probably true. Not with Dameron perhaps, but with the First Order. If they had this many Stormtroopers in, they probably didn't need her around anymore. She would be recalled, and be among her comrades again, and forget entirely about Jakku.

"The pilot, eh?" the old man said. "You'd better get going then, before you get caught up in the fire."

Troopers didn't kill civilians. They only killed enemies.

"They've been here before, you know," the old man went on. Sun wanted, more than anything, for him to stop. "Took a bunch of kids."

Yes. Yes, they had.

_Where am I?_

_Home._

_That's not true! Where's mum?_

_If you don't calm down, we will sedate you._

_Where's my mum?_

_You don't have one. You were an orphan._

She had even missed the sensation of the sand against her skin, forever trying to get in her eyes.

"Why?" Sun asked, feeling sick in her stomach, unable to stop.

"Don't you know?" the old man said. "They always do that. Take the kids, and brainwash them into obedient little Stormtroopers, ready to kill their own families at the blink of an eye. They don't just grow them in vats like the Empire did."

She had known, in a way. She had known that the First Order saved them, children who would have starved to death without help. She had never heard it described by someone outside the First Order.

She almost hated the old man.

She stood up. She had things to do. She had her nation to serve. She had to stop thinking about this. She had to stop him looking at her like he knew her.

"I’ll get going," she said. "My ride 's leaving soon."

"Good luck then!" the old man said. "Perhaps we'll meet again, Sun-ray."

She thought it was just another nickname. It wasn't until she was at almost at Dameron's ship when the memory slipped under her skin.

_What's your name?_

_She said: Rey._

_The glass of water remained on their side. "That's incorrect," they replied._

It had to be a coincidence. It had to be, or- Or, she had betrayed the First Order. Or, she deserved to die. She felt numb. She felt like nothing at all.

Dameron wasn't by the ship. The droid was. As soon as it saw her it started beeping and rolling into the marketplace, distressed.

_He's waiting for you, hurry up._

Sun didn't know why if he was waiting, he wasn't waiting at the ship.

And then the fire started.

She really, really wanted her suit.

The droid let out a trill of beeps, and someone grabbed her arm. She shook it off. Dameron said; "Come on, we have to get out of here. Now." He started running back towards the ship, but pulled them both back behind a tent when he saw the troopers now standing guard outside of it.

"Damn." Then: "Where's a safe place we can hide?"

Jakku was a desert planet with predators lurking under every sand dune. There wasn't really anywhere safe. She crossed her arms. "Why are we running?"

Dameron looked at her incredulously.

"It's the First Order!" he said, like that explained everything.

It didn't.

"They don't attack civilians," she said. She regretted saying that when Dameron looked at her, one eyebrow raised.

"Not sure where you heard that," he said. "But I'm not a civilian, anyway. I'm Resistance. They're here for me."

No.

“Why?” she asked.

"I can't explain now," he said. Blaster fire rang out again, closer this time. "We need to run!"

They ran, into a pair of officers. Sun froze, and fought down the urge to salute. She had to keep to her story, especially now the stakes where so high. Resistance. He was from the Resistance. Dameron pulled out a gun, and then she couldn't not act. He would kill the officers, if he got the chance. She couldn't let that happen. She knew how to disable people without killing them. She attacked.

She felt like throwing up. One of them still got shot in the leg but he was still alive but she had attacked her superiors and-

"Come on, " Dameron grabbed her arm, "More are coming!"

They stopped behind an old ship in the junkyard.

"Where'd you learn to fight like that?" Dameron asked.

Sun threw up in the sand.

"Hey," Dameron said, reaching over, rubbing her back as she retched. "Hey, it's okay."

He didn't ask again: why?

Force, Sun deserved to die. She didn't know why she hadn't died already. She didn't know she was so wrong. And then-something.

She looked up, walked carefully around the side of the ship hiding them and then said: "We can't hide. We have to get back to the ship."

Dameron looked at her. "Why?" She didn't like him looking at her at all, when she was nothing now.

"Kylo Ren".

Bizarrely, Dameron didn't look utterly terrified. Sun wondered it if he had heard her properly.

"Never met him before" he shrugged.

Well, that was probably why. He hadn't seen Ren destroy a room in a tantrum; he hadn't seen Ren slice troopers apart, their suits meaning nothing, having no defence against a light-saber. But that wasn't something Sun could say.

"The Force," she said instead. "He can find you with the Force."

"Okay, " Dameron said, still looking not terrified enough. "We'll get back to the ship."

They wouldn't manage it, not with the ships of troopers still arriving.

"Are you better now?"

Sun frowned at him. "Yes," she said shortly, because it wasn't like she could say: _no, I'm going to die._

The realization in itself wasn't that bad. She had always known she was going to die: that was what happened to troopers.

If one dies, the rest lives on.

It was because if she died here, she would die a traitor, and traitors didn't deserve life in the first place.

She wanted to drag Dameron into Ren's sights, somehow atone for her sins. But she was undercover and Jacks had told her never to reveal her cover. She couldn't do anything, she told herself.

_Never forget, your fate belongs to the First Order._

They ran and ran, and watched as Dameron's ship went up in flames. He pulled them behind a building and swore. Sun didn't know why he was surprised. Of course the First Order would cut off all avenues of escape, and it wasn't like they needed Dameron's ship. Their ships were the best in the known universe.

Sun realized she was waiting for Dameron to speak first, expecting him to be her commanding officer. It was such a disgusting thought that she spoke first and said: "They'll keep coming until you're caught. We can’t escape."

Dameron looked at her considering for a moment, then grinned, a thing of teeth and edges. "I can fight," he said. "And apparently so can you."

That had been a mistake.

"You can't fight Kylo Ren," she said instead.

Then there was a shout and they had to run again. Dameron shot at their pursuers. It took every piece of Sun’s self-control to not turn it on him.

_You are a mechanic, you just want to get off this planet, the First Order is your enemy._

Soon, she would be able to peel off that cover. Even if she died, her last thoughts would be of her comrades, of the beautiful world they were trying to create through blood and death, so glorious that any sacrifice - every sacrifice - was worth the cause.

"Can we go into the desert?" Dameron asked, his hand tight around her arm. She had forgotten that he was there for a moment.

Sun shrugged. "There are predators, and we don't have water." She waved a hand towards the communal rain tank. "And they've probably destroyed that by now."

"Those bastards," Dameron said. "There's no other way to get water?"

"No," Sun said.

"So this planet entire is going to die of thirst."

It was and wasn't a question. Sun wasn't sure way it was important. Especially with the sound of yet another ship landing, and the formation surrounding the fleeing people. Force, she wanted to be with her comrades.

"They probably won't survive that long." she pointed out.

Dameron dropped her arm like it burned him. It really hadn't. He looked angry. If he was her commanding officer Sun would apologize, though she wouldn't know what for. But then it was often that way with apologies. If you know knew what you had done wrong then it was insubordination, a chosen disobedience. It wasn't better not to know. Then he said:

"Have you heard of the Resistance?"

Suns fingers twitched for a blaster, but her face remained blank. "Yes," she said. The fewer details she gave the better. That was the easier way to maintain a cover.

"Okay," he said, and held out a data-bit to her. Sun blinked. Dameron closed her fingers around it.

"What is it?"

Dameron said: "I'm going to get caught anyway. I was doing to give it to BB-8, but they'll be looking for him as well. They won't be looking for you."

BB-8 beeped slightly angrily. "Sorry, BB-8" he said.

Sun slipped it in a pocket. and waited. Glanced towards the crowd, waiting to be gunned down.

"It’s a map to find Luke Skywalker," Dameron said quickly. "You have to make sure it gets to the Resistance."

There were about a thousand reasons why she wouldn't do that, but she went with the easiest one. "I don't have a ship," she said.

"I'm sure you'll figure something out. You seem to have quite a few hidden talents."

Sun's breath caught in her throat for a moment.

_He'll be captured soon,_ she told herself, _he’ll be dead soon. He’s not a threat._ She was reading it wrong.

She just nodded.

"Wait until the First Order is gone," Dameron said.

Sun nodded. She was good at taking orders.

And Dameron and BB-8 left, still trying to hide, apparently suicidally trying to board a First Order ship. And of course Ren's head turned in their direction and they fell. The troopers surrounded them, disabled BB-8, knocked Dameron out - he wouldn't be killed yet, not with the information he could have - and dragged them onto a ship.

She watched as an officer questioned Ren on something and he slashed a hand through the air angrily.

Most troopers hated Kylo Ren. Sun wasn't a surprised that her hatred was hidden among the rest. General Hux and Phasma, the other two parts of the triumvirate, respected them. Kylo Ren, with his obsession with the Force, seemed to still think they were grown in vats, barely people at all.

There was a story that went, the first time Kylo Ren met a trooper, he sliced off his head. The story also went, that the first time Kylo Ren met a trooper, Phasma shot him in the leg.

The data-bit felt uncomfortable in her pocket.

The blasters aimed. The collaborators screamed and cried and begged.

They fired.

She realized, as the bodies starting falling, that Dameron had turned himself in - and in the Resistance, he must know that the First Order didn’t return prisoners intact - not only to preserve his mission of getting the flash drive to the Resistance, but because he thought his surrender would save the collaborators. Why, she didn't know. Most of them were going to die without the water supply anyway. Not the Hutts, perhaps, who had the resources to bring in water from outside, but everyone else. So wasn't it better to die quickly?

She realized, as she watched, that one trooper wasn't shooting.

Something tilted in her head. She hadn't known it was even possible to disobey a direct order, and yet here was this trooper. He should be think thanking the Force that Ren had already left, or he would be decommissioned by now. He should be decommissioned anyway. There was obviously something wrong with him.

If he was lucky, he would be decommissioned. If he wasn't, he would be reconditioned.

Sun waited until it was quiet, but then peeled off her skin patch on her inner arm, and went and found an officer. They wanted to get back to the mothership as fast as possible, so her debrief was short, and she was sent off the to retrieve her suit.

She disliked the looks that the others gave her as she passed without a suit and held out her arm every time she was stopped. When she put her suit back on, she relaxed for the first time in weeks. She relaxed, but the data-bit pressed against her hip, hidden between cloth and armour.

Phasma was talking to a trooper as she emerged from the room. The one that hadn't shot, she realized, being sent to reconditioning. That wasn't what made her stumble for a moment: it was that she knew him, helmet off. Eight-Seven. He had been on her former troop, before she had been promoted to undercover.

He was the type that would never advance, but formed the basis of the First Order. Foot soldiers were always needed.

"SN-1189." Phasma said as she walked away. Sun stopped and saluted. Phasma dismissed Eight-Seven and he walked off to reconditioning, his helmet back on. Phasma said: "I don't have the time right now, but there will be a full debrief tomorrow at twelve-hundred. There were some gaps in your report so we need to fill those in."

"Yes ma’am," Sun said and saluted again before she was dismissed as well. It had used to be a comfort, the way Phasma knew all the troopers and their missions. Now, it was terrifying.

She hadn't given in the data-bit yet.

She had colluded, however momentarily, with the enemy. She was a traitor, and now she had to find a story that didn't make her a traitor.

All her excuses were useless. She had supposed to be primarily observation. Arguing that Dameron involved her wouldn't make her right. She could have said no, she couldn't fix the ship, right at the beginning of this mess. She had disobeyed the orders of a n officer, and now there was a data-bit against her hip and it was already too late to hand in it in.

She would be decommissioned. She would probably be turned over to Kylo Ren for target practice.

Pushing open the door to the dorm, her home suddenly didn't feel as safe as it had been before. Taking off her helmet, she greeted her comrades, and thought, _I could be damning them as well just by talking to them._

She had to find a way to fix this.

Her dreams were full of Jakku, and she woke with the taste of sand on her tongue, impossible, and the tendrils of a plan.

The only way she could remain loyal to the First Order was continue her play. She would be useless to the First Order dead or reconditioned. This way, she could be useful, could return with enough information to destroy the First Order's enemies.

She didn't consider that turning in the data-bit now would help the First Order. Because really, what could one force-user do to the First Order? The Resistance was more of a problem.

In school, they had been taught the rudimentary pieces of strategy and tactics, in case one of them advanced to officer status. Sun was finding those lessons hard to remember now. It was easier to let the plan be ghostly in her mind, less of a thought. If she thought about it directly, even though it was for the good of the First Order, she didn't think she would be able to do it.

It was with this ghostly plan in mind, that she picked up Eight-Seven. She had forgotten about him in her own fears. He had forgotten about himself in reconditioning.

Reconditioning was always a last resort, after decommissioning, because it produced troopers who were so reduced in capabilities.

Why wasn't he decommissioned? It wasn't like he was vital enough the First Order to keep alive. Except this - him staring at her blankly, following her orders like she was an officer - said that he was.

It was easy enough to find where Dameron was being held, and whether Ren was around. Sometime in the night, he and several orders of troopers had left to go and track down the droid.

Sun didn’t know what to think about the fact that he hadn't revealed her. It was the data-bit, obviously. He hadn't revealed her, even under torture, because he believed the data-bit was important enough. Not Sun.

Eight-Seven was silent half a step behind her. It was strange - she remembered him as being talkative, slightly arrogant. She also realized that now, because of him, she was trapped in to carrying out the plan. But she had been trapped before, so it didn't matter that much.

She waited until change-over: there was a two-minute lag and went and unlocked the door. It was easy enough: she had been allowed to learn those skills in order to aid her in her undercover missions. It was dark. She closed the door, secure in the knowledge that this was the kind of room that sound did not exit, flicked on the lights: staying in the domain of Kylo Ren in the dark seemed too terrifying, even though it was irrational. Everyone knew he was just a murderous dog, without Hux and Phasma to control him. Neither of them would be on his Sun's side now.

The lights revealed Dameron tied down to a chair, eyes dragging open at the sight of them. [need to insert a guard at the door or something] His eyes closed again. His face looked battered, and one of his arms was broken. They hadn't gone far, it looked like. But then why would you, when you had a Kylo Ren to tear memories out of a head?

False memories, this time.

The arm could be a problem though, the face not so much. Both better to deal with now. She found a couple of bacta-patches in the obligatory medical kit and stuck them on his face. Dameron's eyes opened again. "Thank you," he said. He had that bloodthirsty grin on his face again. Sun thought it had to hurt. She ignored him and got some things to make a makeshift sling for him. A bacta-sling would be best of course, but she would have to go and check one out and that would start a thousand warning bells. She waved Eight-Seven in case he got violent, and untied his arms.

He didn't move, just glared at her.

She didn't think about it, just fixed up his arm, then removed the rest of his restraints.

"You're quiet for an execution squad," he said.

Sun sighed under her breath, then decided this wouldn't work unless she had some way to control him. And that way was her identity.

She took off her helmet.

For a moment, the relief in his eyes was almost too hard to bear, reminding her: _they'll come back, they'll come back for me, just you wait and see._

_They're never coming back for you._

Then it was gone. "Why the fuck are you here?" he said.

"To rescue you," Sun said. She still didn't know whether that comment yesterday meant he knew or not. Until he she was sure, she would continue this charade. "I didn't think you'd survive long here."

"And of course you know that," Dameron muttered, then: "You were supposed to go to the Resistance. That was the whole point of this-" He attempted a gesture, then winced and stopped when it pulled at his broken arm.

"We are," Sun said. "With you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so this has a lot of inconsistencies. I'm sorry. I just have to make this first draft first, and then I'll go back and nit-pick it.  
> Anyway, hope you still enjoyed it despite that!   
> Comments are like those days when you get home and someone has already bought chocolate to share.


End file.
